Nostalgia – Page 12 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Nostalgia

New Hay

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Harvest / September 26, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The scent of hay
thrown upward in the cutting

Too rich and heavy to remain aloft
falls back to lie among its fallen friends

Walk shuffling small feet through it
and it lifts again in clouds to nostrils

Breathed in sweet particles remain
I do believe … there’s some there yet

Threshing Time

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Relationships, Remembering / tagged Harvest / September 25, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I remember at Christmas
getting a great threshing machine
A block of wood with wooden spools nailed to the side
but I loved it as I loved the threshing

All through the long summer days
I would walk the fields with my dog
At night my mother rubbed strong liniment
on four year old legs
Growing pains she said, although one always hurt more
and didn’t seem to grow any faster

And the grain grew too, and passed me, and was higher
than I was. And then the harvest and the wonder of it
falling to the binder, and the magic of the machine
as it tied the sheaves and ke-chunked them into the carrier

Then the stooking – little teepees covering the prairie again
and the golden warmth of everything

And the threshing machine; they wouldn’t let me too close
It might eat me like it ate those sheaves, and like the men
in the crew could eat, and they could eat
even when it rained

While I sat for hours, nose to wet window
watching the great gray dinosaur
deep in the timeless mists

And hot clear windless days when everything sang and
the belt slapped and the machine came to life again
and wagons were on both sides
and the big horses were standing strong and ready
and switching flies with dignity

The sun caught the arch of the long plume of straw and
the chaff lifting, and the old hands fed the machine in a
sort of easy sweat-oiled rhyme and the new hands stood
on the sheaves they tried to lift each time

And the old hands laughed, and the new hands laughed
and they were men together

Blue Eyed Boy

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Childhood, Dogs / September 23, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Blue eyed boy
blasts off from breakfast
like a quail on a rail

Collie dog leaps on board
and they’re off across the prairie
barely touching the tops of hills

Sun gives warmth or cloud gives shade
all depending on his whim
birds and rocks and swaying grass
everything living embraces him

Burrs don’t stick and thorns don’t prick
even fences, joining in the play
happily turn their barbs away

Floating along on the wings of four
not long now till they slam that door

Author, about age 4, on the Saskatchewan ranch

Talking to Grandparents

Audio Recordings, Family, Nostalgia, Relationships / August 17, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The hole in never having heard
stories at Grandma or Grandpa’s knee

as interesting as I’m sure they’d be

And on the other side of sad
they never got to learn the same about me

Wishbone Wish

Audio Recordings, Family, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Relationships, Remembering / August 14, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I blow out the candles
and wish for a wishbone
dry as day after thanksgiving

Me and my big sister
pulling on the brittle arms
across the old ranch table

so many candles ago
that neither remember
who got the bigger half

Old Train Math

Audio Recordings, Nostalgia, Poems about Poetry, Travel / August 11, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

If a train leaves Moose Jaw
heading west at the speed of first memory

Engine, cars, and caboose
zebra-ing by behind a snowfence
smoke billowing back over its shoulder

And another leaves, traveling east
from my writing of it now

When will they meet
at the small town of Courval
and your reading of this page

Man on the Hill

Audio Recordings, Family, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Relationships / July 13, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The man on the hill watches me still

As firm in the saddle, as firm in the gaze
as ever he was in my growing days

Old family photograph with an overlay of John Weaver bronze “The Man on the Hill”

Traveling Not 2020

Nostalgia, Travel / tagged Covid19, Greece, Mykanos / June 29, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It’s one thing
not going back to Greece when you can

It’s quite another
when the choice is out of your hands

Shouldn’t have watched Mamma Mia tonight

Photo of Mykanos Harbour by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

All They Survey

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / June 23, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

My father
would stand for hours
just looking at his cows

Like God leaning
on a rail fence in heaven
pleased with his creation

Photo by Nadine on Unsplash

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Revisiting Cathedrals in the Time of Travel Bans

Nostalgia, Remembering, Travel / tagged Covid19, Milan, Paris / June 22, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

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Good one, it’s still goin on
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Siblants interlapping with interference waves construct this delightful hologram of spring: well done my friend
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21 beats, 4 past hyku, (sp); perhaps a new form. Beautiful poem

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